View full sizeJohn McCusker, The Times-Picayune archiveThe flood insurance program is $18 billion in debt, mostly as a result of claims paid out for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. This rebuilding project on Mexico Street in Gentilly was photographed in August 2010.

The bill, which passed 406-22, allows for a 50 percent premium rate increase for homes and businesses with a history of multiple claims. After that, it allows for four years of 20 percent increases to create a market rate for these "high-risk" properties.

"As the first significant reform to the program in nearly a decade, this bill will phase out taxpayer-subsidized rates and restore the integrity of the flood mapping system," said Rep. Judy Baggert, R-Ill., the bill's lead sponsor. "The NFIP is too important to let lapse and too in debt to continue without reform."

The flood insurance program is $18 billion in debt, mostly as a result of claims paid out for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. In report language accompanying the legislation, the bill's authors say it's unlikely, even with the new reforms, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency will be able to repay the debt over the next 10 years.

In pushing for increases in premium rates for high-risk properties, particularly waterfront homes, sponsors cited a recent Government Accountability Office report that found premiums cover only 40 percent to 45 percent of the full amounts of floor insurance.

Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., offered an amendment that would eliminate the program altogether. With such huge taxpayer subsides, the program operates in a way "that would make Bernie Madoff blush," said Miller, alluding to the convicted Ponzi scheme mastermind.

Her amendment was rejected 384-38.

Some House members said that one provision, allowing yearly premium increases of 20 percent, up from the current maximum increase of 10 percent, would put too heavy a burden on many of the program's 5.6 million policyholders.

But the House rejected an amendment that would have kept the current 10 percent limit in place.

Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans, said it is long past time for Congress, which over the past several years has been able only to muster votes for brief extensions of the programs, to provide a long-term extension and allowed, as the House bill does, for increases in coverage limits tied to inflation.

"The importance of the National Flood Insurance Program to our country's economy and folks' personal recovery cannot be overstated," Richmond said. "We know it firsthand here in Louisiana. I was glad to see that members of both parties came together, agreed this program is critical, and voted for improvements to protect it long term."

The bill, which has the support of the Obama administration, now goes to the Senate. All seven Louisiana House members voted for the flood insurance bill.